Land, Piety, Peoplehood

Book excerpt: The Mennonite Experience in America Series weaves together the histories of all Mennonite and Amish groups in the United States. It offers something new in Mennonite and Amish history: an attempt to tell not only the inside story but also how one religious people, or set of peoples, has lived and developed along with the pluralism of the nation.Richard K. MacMaster follows the Mennonite migration to the New World and analyzes the economic, social, political, and religious forces which drove these people out of the Old World into America. MacMaster paints a portrait of the lives of the early American Mennonite people: their wealth, migration patterns, social structures, family patterns, and changing attitudes toward education. He traces the influence of such movements as Pietism on these people and shows how they fit into the total context of colonial and revolutionary America. Volume 1.